11) Add to this heady sexuality, undefinable except by what it is not (heterosexually male), the phallic power which a gun invokes and the gun moll becomes a location where desire and danger, female and male, familiar and transgressive sexualities, intersect.

18) Like most other young women during the Depression, whether married or single, each gun moll had a work history, usually in service jobs.

Other than money, a gun moll had access to another kind of capital: what she knew, or conversely, what she could claim she did not know.

The gun moll disdains their deal and instead "took the 'rap' like good people," thereby inverting the notion of who good people really are.

Unlike John Dillinger's sweetheart, Evelyn "Billie" Frechette, who was awaiting trial on conspiracy charges in the same jail, these gun molls were interrogated extensively and then released.

Despite these denials, newspapers around the country published front-page pictures of the alleged gun molls in riding breeches, leaving no doubts in the accompanying text that the women were, in fact, who they claimed not to be.

Silence, and breaking silence, are both themes and methodological problems when studying the gun molls of the 1930s.

Edgar Hoover and the federal Division of Investigation carried out a nationwide campaign against bandit crime, gun molls were arrested, interrogated, and often publicly tried as accomplices to federal crimes.

Close readings of rhetoric, language, and particular tropes (specifically those surrounding family, heterosexual partnership, and female identity) both link gun molls to larger themes in the history of women and expand our understanding of how gender ideologies shape female experience.

In addition, federal laws passed in 1934 made aiding and abetting fugitives a crime in itself so that cultural value systems which required women to "stand by their men" were inverted in the case of the criminal woman, transforming gun molls from "loyal wives" to enemies of the state.

Within these categories, gun molls both established their similarities to "straight" women, by suggesting that their crimes were the logical consequence of romantic love for a man gone wrong, and contested conventional roles accorded to women in general during the Depression years.

In short, previous to becoming gun molls, some of these women had made ambitious and independent choices.

When the federal government began filing conspiracy charges against bandit women in the spring of 1934, it became important for prosecutors and defense attorneys to establish how women became gun molls in the first place - what they knew about bandit men, when they knew it, and whether they consciously chose a life of crime.

Unlike a number of male witnesses who claimed to have assisted bandits out of fear, all gun molls for whom I have evidence cited love and choice in their decision to join criminal men.

All content on this website, including dictionary, thesaurus, literature, geography, and other reference data is for informational purposes only. This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional.